Thursday, July 29, 2010

Just saw this new Panasonic TA-1 Ultra-thin HD Pocket Camcorder Enabled with Skype and iFrame on Amazon.com.

This is interesting.

1080p Video with Image Stabilization
The TA-1 shoots 1080p FULL HD video with Electronic Image Stabilization. It also has a built in built in LED light. I'll be interested to see how that compares to the entry level external Sima LED light.

iFrame
The camera uses iFrame format. This is the first camera I've seen that uses this new format.

iFrame is a constraint of the H.264 codec specified by Apple to ensure ease of consumer video editing.

It provides a square-pixel 16:9 image format of 960 horizontal by 540 vertical pixels, with progressive scanning at 30 frames per second and can be identified as the format "540p30". These parameters are one-half the spatial resolution of 1080p in each direction, one-quarter the total number of pixels. iFrame has 1.5 times the number of pixels in standard definition 4:3 720×480 CCIR 601 NTSC video. However, its progressive scanning increases the approximate perceived resolution advantage over 480i to roughly a factor of 2.

The 30 fps frame rate used for iFrame may result in increased "judder" with moving images, when compared to the nominal frame rate of 60 fields per second (30 fps interlaced with even and odd lines) used in North America for professional video.

The iFrame Video format is designed by Apple to speed up importing and editing by keeping the content in its native recorded format while editing. Setting a camcorder to record in the iFrame video format can result in optimized performance in iMovie ’09.

Webcam and Microphone
The TA-1 also works as a Web camera and microphone. I've never seen this feature on a pocket HD video camera. People always ask if their pocket HD video cameras can also be used as webcams. This is a great idea, since I'm starting to see standalone HD webcams. Can't wait to test this feature out. Note that The LED light does not go on when operating as a Web camera.

USB Cable Warning
Panasonic also notes in the product specs:

Do not use any USB extension cord other than the supplied one (Operation is not guaranteed with any other USB extension cord.).

That's troubling since I use 100 different USB cables, ususaly the one I have with me. Having to use a specific cable is problematic.

Don't we have a USB 2.0 standard?

Availability
According to Panasonic, the HM-TA1 will be available in three different color options, purple, dark grey and red in August 2010 with a suggested retail price of $169.95.

2. Sound
Getting better sound with a camera that doesn't support an external microphone is easy if you are aware of your location. Keep YOUR ears open when recording. I've seen way too many interviews conducted in the middle of a noisy show floor. Move to a quieter place, like a hallway or an empty room. You can always use an audio recorder in addition to the Flip and merge the video and audio later in an editing program. Plural Eyes helps do that automatically.

3. Editing
I love FlipShare. Makes it very easy to edit your videos. If you are on a Mac and want to move up to something with more features, try iMovie 09. It allows you to overlay video so that, for example, if you are conducting an interview, you can show the viewer interesting shots of what the speaker is talking about.

Monday, July 26, 2010

...for the first time ever, Ford is bucking with tradition and turning to the web — with Facebook as the platform — to reveal its latest vehicle.

Ford has been using the Ford Explorer Facebook Page to drum up excitement in anticipation of the all-day Facebook event. They’ve already far surpassed their goal of 30,000 fans prior to the reveal, which means the car maker will be giving away an Explorer to one random fan.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

My friend Wayne Sutton was in town and we met up at HubSpot TV on Friday. It was the last episode of Hubspot TV from One Broadway. The next episode will be from the new HubSpot offices at 25 First Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA.

You then see a page with all your disputed videos, here's what one of mine looks like.

Click 'View Copyright Info'.

You're then presented with this page:

I filled it out, checking off box #1, still thinking that I was using music that wasn't a match, and entering an electronic signature.

When I hit CONTINUE, I got the same screen back that said "All Fields Required."

So even though I thought the wording wasn't exactly right, I changed my check off to #3 from #1 because it seems that the programmer requires the text field: "Please explain briefly:" to be filled out. Here's what I wrote to explain it:

3. This video uses the copyrighted material at issue, but with the appropriate authorization from the copyright owner.
I have permission from Josh Ryan of Secrets in Stereo to use this music. It is NOT Rumblefish.Signature
Steve Garfield

At this point I still thought rumblefish was a band name. ;-)

Then the form says to type this text into the 'Statement of Good Faith' box:

"I have a good faith belief that the material was disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification, and that I am not intentionally abusing this dispute process."

Then you are presented with Dispute Claim (Step 2 of 2) - Confirmation:

I'd suggest that YouTube make 'rumblefish' a clickable link so that content creators could click over and search for the music they are using to determine if they are using it in error or not.

Hopefully this easy way of submitting information will be improved in page 1 form entry and continue to make it easier for content creators to dispute claims that have been placed against videos in error.

Welcome to Fair Use Tube.org! This is a site for user-generated video creators to learn how to protect their "fair use" rights under U.S. copyright law on video sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Metacafe, and Dailymotion.

When I started a site for my book, Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business, last year, I had to decide what it would be. Would it be a SPLASH PAGE to show people where to buy the book, or would it be a community where people could interact with me and other readers?

I put the question out to twitter and posted two examples, one was a standard splash page, the other was a NING community site. People liked the community site because they could instantly see that the site wasn't static. The new content was being posted AND that they could interact.

Get Seen NING Site

So I went with NING. On all may blog posts, tweets and emails I published "http://stevegarfield.com/getseen" as the site for my book. That redirected to http://getseen.ning.com. I did it that way so I could change the redirect at any time and keep the same URL.

Last was SO last year. Now NING has decided to charge everyone.

That made me take a look at NING again. I would have been happy to pay for their service, but I took the opportunity to look at some options. At the same time I was running the NING site, I also had a FACEBOOK Get SEEN PAGE up.

I didn't have it as my main site, just as a a place for people who were already on Facebook to go to see content. Without any promotion, I had more fans on Facebook for the book than I had on NING.

So I made the decision to switch from NING to FACEBOOK. To make the change I just changed the redirect from NING to FACEBOOK.

All of a sudden I had people commenting, posting questions, uploading videos and interacting like I never had on NING.

I think I saw all the increased activity because Facebook is where people are. It's a familiar user interface and EASY to participate.

The best way to encourage user submissions is to let people use the tools that they know, and tag the content so you'll see it. Post videos to YouTube, upload photos to Flickr, tweet on twitter with the #EpicFu hashtag. Remove the barriers to sharing.

One more thing I did was use Facebook Markup Language (FBML) to create a Facebook landing page. What this does is serve as a splash page for people new to the book site and encourages them to click the LIKE button to join the community.

Facebook Landing Page

Once you've visited the splash page and clicked LIKE the first time, you never see the splash page again and are sent to the main Facebook wall.

It's the solution I didn't have last year when I was designing the site. It's so easy.

One more thing. I think that there are too many community sites. Back in the early days of the internet, we had a handful of commercial communities like Prodigy, Compuserve and Delphi.

You'd log into these sites and were presented with a number of groups that you could join. Then when you'd revisit the site, you's see new messages and be able to participate in groups that you were interested in.

These sites were huge bulletin board systems.

I liked knowing where the conversation was. Everything is so disjointed now with many new sites requiring you to join yet another community.

For EpicFu, you've already built a robust community here, so the barrier to joining might not be an issue, but I think being where the people are and lowering the bar to entry is something to consider.

In fact, I saw that you had posted here, not via email or the EpicFu site, but via twitter.

Twisted Tea will be giving away an extreme sports "Twisted Event" during the evening.

There will be a local acoustic band playing all of your favorite hits. Meet local marketers, socialites, Twitterati, and friends for drinks and complimentary hors d'oeuvres.

Visit www.bostonmediamakers.com for the latest information about Boston Media Makers and past meeting reports. Boston Media Makers meets on the first Sunday of every month at Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain.

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About Me

Steve is a Social Media Traveler. Companies, brands, and destinations send my wife and I on trips in hopes that we will publicly share our experiences via social media. Examples include opening festivities for the Hermitage Club and traveling with GMC to the Super Bowl. (Go Pats!) We are available for more branded experience trips.